Montgolfier
Location, Access, Description
The Montgolfier property is located in Eeyou-Istchee James Bay Territory (Qc), about 65 km southwest of Matagami and 150 km north of Rouyn-Noranda. The property consists of 131 mining claims totaling 6,637.31 Ha. The claims belong to Galway Metals and Globex retains a 1% Gross Metal Royalty (GMR).
The property is accessible in vehicle from the village of Authier (Qc) via the “Authier-Nord/Joutel” road and by a network of gravel roads and trails. The property is located in the Ojibway-Barlow clay belt in a flat, poorly drained, swampy area, crossed to the east of the property by the Harricana River.
Skilled labour, equipment providers and contractors who are able to facilitate exploration activities are abundant in the area, being available in Amos, La Sarre and Rouyn-Noranda. High-voltage power line is running at the Casa Berardi mine (Hecla Mining Company) located 25 km west of the property.
Geology and Mineralization
The Montgolfier property lies in the western part of the Harricana-Turgeon belt of the Archean Abitibi Subprovince, within the Northern Volcanic Zone (NVZ) of Chown et al. (1992). Following Lacroix (1994 – MB94-54), rocks of the area are organized into E-W oriented bands, including from north to south the Taibi sediments (northern band), Orvilliers-Desmazures basalts, Taibi sediments (southern band), mafic tholeiitic lavas and ultramafic intrusions of the Cartwright Hills, the Casa-Berardi volcano-sedimentary domain, and the Joutel-Raymond basaltic-rhyolitic domain. The presence of a few linear electromagnetic conductors in these domains also suggests interbedded thin tuffs or fine detrital sediments (argillites) rich in graphite. The northern part of the Mistaouac batholith, which has a quartz-diorite – diorite – tonalite composition, covers the southern part of the area.
Rocks of the property are composed of felsic to mafic volcanics of the Cartwright Hills Group in the south, wacke, mudrocks and banded iron formations (BIF) of the Taibi Group in the center, and mafic volcanics and gabbro sills of the Orvilliers-Desmazures Group in the north. This sequence is squeezed between intrusive rocks of the Orvilliers Pluton in the north and the synvolcanic Mistaouac Pluton (2,726 ±2 Ma; Davis et al., 2000) in the south, which represents one of the major intrusions in the Abitibi Subprovince (Lacroix and Sawyer, 1995; Legault et al., 2002).
Regional foliation is molded around large intrusions; on the Montgolfier property, foliation is E-W to ENE-trending and steeply dipping, metamorphism is at the greenschists to amphibolite grade. The Harricana fault crosses through the property in a ENE direction. Proterozoic diabase dykes cut all archean rocks in a NE orientation (Biscotasing swarm) and N-S direction (Matachewan swarm).
The Montgolfier property is located between the Joutel mining camp (15 km southeast) and the Casa Berardi mine (25 km west) operated by Hecla Mining Company. Numerous gold and base metal showings and deposits are known in this area : copper-zinc mineralization is related to volcanogenic massive sulphides (VMS) while gold mineralization is structurally controlled by an east-west trending fault system associated with the Casa-Berardi deformation zone, which appears to be the dominant regional mineralized structure.
The Casa Berardi mine is a underground / open-pit gold mine composed of three (3) main deposits located along the E-W Casa Berardi regional shear corridor (Hecla website, august 2025). In date of December 31, 2024, the Casa Berardi mine has Proven & Probable Reserves of 15.4 Mt @ 0.08 oz/t Au (Open-pit) and 478,000t @ 0.15 oz/t Au (Underground) (Hecla website, August 2025).
The Estrades former gold mine (Historical production of 174,946t @ 12.93% Zn, 1.14% Cu, 6.35 g/t Au and 172.30 g/t Ag; NI 43-101 Technical Report of the Estrades Project, Presacco, 2024) is located 1.5 km SW of the Montgolfier property. The massive and brecciated sulfide mineralization associated with gold and silver consists of pyrite, sphalerite, and chalcopyrite with some galena and pyrrhotite and very small amounts of arsenopyrite and silver- and copper-bearing minerals. The host rock is a quartz and sericite schist derived from felsic volcanic rocks of the Cartwright Hills Group (GM53422).
Seven (7) historic gold showings are present on the property (Figure 4), six of which are located on the Casa-Berardi North Fault Corridor (CBF). Mineralization consists of pyrite (±arsenopyrite) hosted in quartz (±carbonate ±tourmaline) veins and veinlets intersecting sediments and mafic volcanics. Brecciation as well as chloritization, sericitization and silicification of the hostrock is frequently observed in the mineralized sections. Assays up to 8.22 g/t Au over 3.2 m are observed on the Rivière Plamonde-NW showing, and up to 1.2 g/t Au over 9.75 m on the Lac Orvilliers Ouest showing.
History
Following the discovery of the Casa Berardi gold deposits during the 1980s, the Montgolfier project area was subject to extensive exploration work by several exploration companies. Historical exploration work has intersected gold mineralization in surface boreholes associated with quartz veining, hydrothermal alteration and sulphide mineralization. MEGATEM II airborne surveys in early 2000’s highlighted numerous strong INPUN-EM anomalies all along the Casa Berardi fault.
Ion 1986, Pennant Resources Ltd. carried out a geological description of the Estrées property which provides a lot of useful information on the geology and exploration history of the area (GM44109). In 2004, SRK Consulting wrote a NI 43-101 Technical Report on the Montgolfier Project for J-Pacific Gold Inc. In 2019, Galway Metals Inc. carried-out high-resolution gravity and magnetometry airborne survey (Figures 5 & 6) (GM71328).
In 2024, SLR Consulting wrote a 43-101 Technical Report on the Estrades Project for Galway Metals Inc. (Presacco, 2024) providing an updated estimate of the Mineral Resources present at the Estrades polymetallic VMS deposit, which incorporated the results from the drilling campaigns completed by Galway from 2019 and 2022. Indicated Resources of 1.75 Mt @ 5.76% Zn, 0.97% Cu, 0.48% Pb, 2.86 g/t Au and 94.4 g/t Ag have been estimated.
Resources and Potential
Following the very positive Resources estimate in 2024 (Presacco, 2024 – NI 43-101 Technical Report on the Estrades Project), active exploration by Galway Metals of the Estrades Project, including the Montgolfier property (Globex 1% GMR) is still ongoing.